Group Demands No Inheritance Tax for Disenfranchised Expats

Submitted by admin on Wed, 06/02/2013 - 17:20

There is a strong and growing campaign for expats to keep the right to vote in United Kingdom elections even past the current 15 year limit. Now, however, one expat group is demanding the end of Inheritance Tax for any expat denied the right to vote.

As a kind of trade off to mitigate the lack of voting rights, expats are now clamouring to have Inheritance Tax suspended at the same time as the ability to vote in elections.

The UK government argues that after 15 years away from Britain expats are out of touch with British politics. Expats now counter that if this is the case then their assets should be out of the reach of the UK tax authorities.

Christopher Chantrey, of the British Community Committee of France, said, “Expats abroad contribute a vast amount of income to the UK economy. This can be in the form of frequent visits to the UK, where they have to stay somewhere, eat, travel etc. Many expats purchase goods and services online from abroad, including shopping, pensions, insurance, groceries and cars.

“Take Poland, for example - 60 million Poles, of whom 40 million live in Poland and 20 million live abroad. All of them can vote in Polish national elections, wherever they live, provided they are of voting age. That is why we see huge queues of Poles outside the Polish Embassy in London on Polish election days.”